Dubai’s DP World H1 profit jumps 22%, acquisition helps

DP World, one of the world’s largest port operators, reported a 21.9 per cent rise in net profit for the first half of the year on Thursday, helped by the acquisition of logistics infrastructure firm EZW.

The company, one of the more profitable assets of debt-laden Dubai World, posted a first-half net profit of $405m. This compared with a profit of $332m in the corresponding period of 2014, it said in a bourse statement.

DP World’s revenue for the six months to June 30 was $1.90bn, up from $1.66bn a year earlier. Revenue growth, the company said, was helped by acquisitions including the purchase of EZW from Dubai World.

In July, the Dubai-based company said consolidated throughput in the first half of 2015 was 14.4m TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units), up 3.5 per cent from a year earlier. This referred to volumes only at ports that DP World controls.

“We remain on course to deliver over 100m TEU of capacity by 2020, while maintaining the existing shape of our portfolio that has a 70 per cent exposure to origin and destination cargo and 75 per cent exposure to faster growing markets,” DP World chairman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem said on Thursday.

“This positioning will enable us to deliver both earnings growth and shareholder value over the long term.”